


Gang Aft Agley

by cheride



Category: White Collar (TV 2009)
Genre: Choices, Friendship, Gen, Loyalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:33:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29755512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheride/pseuds/cheride
Summary: Mozzie's got good news for Neal. Or does he?
Relationships: Neal Caffrey & Mozzie
Comments: 9
Kudos: 17





	Gang Aft Agley

* * *

“Then we cross the bridge to the other side of the Seine and head directly to the fifteenth arrondissement where we’ll have a car waiting.”

Mozzie watched Neal’s eyes as his friend recited the plan; he loved the glow of excitement and the way Neal didn’t even mention the backup plan of escaping through the catacombs and mines if they happened to be discovered in the museum. He had no doubt Neal had already memorized those contingencies, but one of the secrets to Neal’s success as a thief was that he always assumed he’d _be_ successful. Of course, the kid always had a backup plan or two—he was confident, not stupid, and Moz had taught him well—but Neal Caffrey didn’t dwell on the possibility of failure.

And after the past few months, Moz was glad to see the younger man genuinely enjoying himself, focused for once on something besides heartache and retribution.

“Once we arrive in Le Havre,” Neal continued, “a boat takes us across the Channel, and we’re in Exeter before the Louvre even knows the Regent is missing. We pick up our next car and spend the month vacationing off the beaten path, slowly heading toward London. Once we’re there, we fly to Greece to meet our buyer, then fly home again. And that’s how we pocket a cool fifty million.” He leaned back in his chair with a satisfied grin. “How’d I do?”

“Not bad, but you forgot to tell me the subway stations.”

“I decided it would be better to walk.”

“You’re just going to stroll along five kilometers of Paris streets with a hundred and forty carat diamond in your pocket?”

“Why not? Less chance of a mugging there than in the subways,” Neal pointed out.

“Possibly.” Moz considered for a moment, then offered an approving smile. “Very well. We’ll consider that a successful job.”

“Was there ever any doubt?”

Rubbing his hands together, Mozzie said, “Okay, let’s do the Met next. Maybe _Gertrude Stein_? You do a pretty passable Picasso, so we can plan to replace her, easy-peasy.”

“Mozzie. You know I prefer to keep our games of fantasy heist a little more _fantasy_ oriented. I don’t think Peter would appreciate us working out the finer details of snatching a piece sitting just a couple miles down the road.”

Moz made a face across the table. “You and your suit.”

“That suit did just help you save your girlfriend,” Neal pointed out.

“I suppose,” he admitted reluctantly. “So, are you saying you think he’d be okay with you working out the finer details of ripping off the Louvre?”

“Well . . . maybe not.” Neal reached for his wine. “But at least he’d believe that was hypothetical. At least currently.” But then his mouth twisted slightly in displeasure. “And what do you mean I do a _passable_ Picasso?”

“Can’t let your head get too big. Besides, ‘we cannot live better than in seeking to become better.’ You haven’t learned everything, you know.”

Neal shook his head with a grin. “Okay, Socrates, teach me something else. Pick another target.”

But Mozzie shook his own head. “I think I prefer to think of my teaching style as more Aristotelian—willing to share my own opinion and not quite as rigid as his philosophical grandfather or father.”

“Fair enough. I’ll call you Ari. What’re we stealing next? Pick something on another continent.”

“Actually, speaking of other continents, I have something I wanted to show you.” Taking his cell phone out of his jacket, Moz placed it on the tabletop. “Call me, would you?”

“Why?”

“You’ll see. Just call me.”

Neal looked at him quizzically, but he pulled his own phone from his pocket and dialed as instructed.

Mozzie answered on speaker, like they weren’t sitting in the same room looking right at each other. “It’s your dime; start talking.”

“Mozzie—”

“Okay, okay. Why don’t you tell me about your latest case?”

“ _Moz!_ ”

Mozzie always appreciated that Neal was usually willing to put up with a lot of his eccentricities, often without question, but somehow talking on the phone to someone sitting on the other side of the table seemed to be taking things too far. He thought that was an odd place to draw a line in the sand.

“Seriously, Neal, tell me a story or something. Just keep talking.”

Neal rolled his eyes but started explaining about their current joint op with the State Department to find the grifters targeting various diplomats and then blackmailing them for ridiculous amounts of money. He lowered his voice to minimize the annoying echo, but he kept talking even as Mozzie pulled some sort of heavy fabric from his bag—coarse, black nylon on one side, smooth and kind of silvery on the other. Moz waved it around like some sort of stage magician and then dropped it dramatically, making sure to cover his phone completely.

“Then after they make the payment—” Neal broke off as the phone suddenly beeped in his ear. He pulled it away, glanced at the **_Call Failed_** message on the screen, and then looked back at the fabric. “Cell blocker?” he asked, already redialing Moz’s number. The call rolled immediately to voicemail. “That’s pretty handy,” he said appreciatively, setting the phone aside. “But what’s the point?”

“Wait.” Mozzie was logging into a laptop he’d pulled from his bag. After a few clicks, he turned it around so Neal could see the screen.

“You’re hacking into my Wi-Fi?”

“It’s hardly hacking when you gave me the password,” Mozzie told him indignantly. “Anyway, you see the connected devices?”

Neal nodded. “My phone, your laptop.”

“Now watch.” Moz dragged the cloth off his phone and waited. In less than a minute, the phone showed up on the list of devices.

“So, it blocks cell signal and Wi-Fi?”

“It does.” Mozzie swiveled the computer back toward himself, tapped a few more keys, and then pointed it toward Neal again, the screen displaying a high-level map of the area, with a large shaded circle in the middle and a green dot in the center of the circle. “This is my phone locator,” he explained.

“You left your GPS active?” Neal seemed more impressed by that than the signal blocking fabric.

Mozzie rolled his eyes. “I _activated_ my GPS for this little demonstration, then I’ll deactivate it again. And change phones, of course.” Then he buried the phone back under the cloth, and the green dot vanished from the map.

Neal stared silently for a few seconds, and Mozzie took the opportunity to take the computer back again and log into a different website. When he turned it around this time, the screen displayed a much more detailed street map with a blinking dot located precisely at their location on Riverside Drive.

That snapped Neal out of his silent reverie. “Moz! Did you hack the marshal’s database?”

Mozzie took a second to wonder if Neal sounded impressed or worried, maybe even angry, then shook his head quickly. “I wish, but as you might imagine, their network is pretty secure. I’m sure I could crack it in time, but I’ve been exploring all our options.” He pulled another device from his messenger bag and tossed it onto the table. “This is one of my test subjects.”

Neal glanced at the tracking anklet—identical to his own—that landed next to the computer, a surprised expression crossing his face.

“What? You didn’t think I’d just give up?”

“No, of course not.” Neal spoke softly, a small smile on his lips.

“Watch the bouncing ball,” Mozzie said gleefully, then dragged the fabric off the phone and covered the tracking anklet.

The blinking light on the map disappeared.

Neal went back to staring at the laptop, an uncertain expression on his face. “Mozzie,” he whispered, “are you telling me this can . . .?”

“It can!” Mozzie’s grin could’ve rivaled a Neal Caffrey special. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Neal grabbed his wine glass, gulped down the remaining liquid, then got up and crossed quickly to the kitchen area for a refill. He filled just the bottom quarter of the bowl, gulped it down again, then poured a more traditional serving and carried both glass and bottle back to the table.

Once he was seated, Neal looked at his old friend again. “Okay, tell me.”

“It’s the same fabric they use for Faraday bags,” Mozzie began.

“I thought those were used to protect against magnetic pulses?”

“Well, yeah, but the same thing that keeps a signal from getting in keeps it from getting out. So, we wrap this stuff around your tracker, seal it up completely, and disappear.”

“I can’t wear that around my leg forever,” Neal pointed out, “and as soon as I unwrap it, the marshals will know where I am. Not to mention the alert they’ll get when it cuts out to begin with.”

“Of course, but here’s the plan: you go to the edge of your radius, the farthest south you can get, by the river. That’ll put you down between the cruise terminal and the Lincoln Tunnel. We take you offline there, and the feds will have to check roads and water; it’ll take a lot of time and a lot of manpower, but we’ll hop in a waiting car and go in another direction.”

“There’s about a million cameras down there, Mozzie; we won’t make it ten miles.”

“You underestimate me, _mon frère_. There are many cameras, yes, but there are also many parking garages. We zip into one of those and jump out while the driver goes right back out and across the river, taking the original car on a leisurely drive toward Jersey. He’ll drop it over in Secaucus or something. We’ll get a good driver, so they should be able to ditch it without getting caught, but we’ll make sure they don’t know our replacement vehicle, just in case.

“Meanwhile, we change cars—and identities—and we’re gone. I’d like to take you straight up to Canada, but I’m afraid that’s the first place your suit would button up, so we’ll cross into Jersey on 95 and head straight west. We’ll change cars in Pennsylvania. Somewhere around Ohio, we’ll cut the anklet and switch vehicles again. The suits won’t know which direction to look first. Maybe we’ll cross the border somewhere out of Minnesota, then keep heading west in Canada. We can fly from Calgary to, say, Amsterdam, and from there . . . well, from there, the world is our oyster, though we might start by spending some time in the Maldives or maybe Cape Verde, someplace with no extradition.”

Mozzie looked at Neal expectantly, waiting for a whoop of excitement, or that laugh he had when all the pieces fell into place, or maybe even questions or suggestions about the plan, but Mozzie expected _something._ Instead, Neal was just sitting without speaking, a dazed look on his face, and his hand clutching the wine glass so tightly Moz was afraid it might break.

“Neal?”

Hearing his name, Neal seemed to realize he should say something, but what he said didn’t sound all that believable, especially to Mozzie, who certainly knew the difference between truth and lie from Neal Caffrey. “That’s a good plan.”

“It _is_ a good plan,” Moz insisted huffily. “Why don’t you like it?”

“I _do_ like it. I said it’s good.” A thoughtful pause. “It’s really _very_ good.”

That sounded more truthful, if maybe not entirely complete, but then Moz heard his least favorite word.

“But . . .”

“But, _what,_ Neal?” He didn’t want to be so exasperated with his young friend, who really had had a spectacularly crappy few months, but this was ridiculous. Maybe grief was affecting Neal even more than he had realized.

“The first thing you said to me,” Moz went on, “that first night I came here, was ‘can you pick it?’ Do you remember that?”

“Of course, but—”

“And for months, I’ve been trying to figure out how to get you out of that thing, and now that I finally have a workable plan—almost foolproof, if I do say so myself—now you don’t want to go? _Why_ don’t you want to go, Neal?”

“Mozzie, I just—”

“And don’t you dare say because of the suit!”

Neal clamped his mouth shut and stared across the table, wide-eyed.

“You’ve got absolutely no sense of self-preservation,” Mozzie snapped, pushing himself out of his chair and pacing around the table. “He put you in prison, Neal!”

“It was his job,” Neal replied quietly. He still hadn’t released his hold on the glass, had barely moved. He just sat rigidly in place and watched Mozzie’s agitated movements, confusion clouding his features.

“I’m not talking about the bonds!” Moz slammed his palms onto the table and leaned across, glaring at Neal. “One of his own cohorts harassed you, framed you, and then betrayed you; he could have gotten you killed. Kate _was_ killed!” He didn’t let himself stop when he saw Neal flinch; the kid needed to be reminded how things were.

“And after that,” Mozzie continued, “after _all_ that, he put you _back_ in prison! That’s not a friend, Neal! You don’t owe him _anything!_ ”

“Fowler betrayed everyone,” Neal said, still quiet, almost apologetic, not meeting Mozzie’s gaze, apparently unwilling to meet anger with anger. “ _He’s_ the one to blame. Peter almost lost his job because of me, barely even three months ago. If I go now . . .”

Moz stared, prepared to rage more, but Neal finally raised his eyes to look directly at his mentor, and the pain that had replaced the earlier mirthful glow froze the words in Mozzie’s throat.

The best thing about Neal, Mozzie had long ago decided, was not his artistic skill, his letter-perfect forgeries, or even the ease with which he could insinuate himself into any situation. No, the very best thing about Neal Caffrey was his loyalty.

It had taken Moz a while to recognize that because it was a commodity so rare in their line of work, he’d thought the early indications were mere cons. But when Neal didn’t blame him after the Adler job ended in disaster, or abandon him once Kate was a reality instead of just a youthful fantasy, or leave him behind to move on to bigger and better things even after Neal had clearly mastered all of the fundamentals Moz had to teach, well, that’s when Mozzie had to accept that Neal’s loyalty wasn’t part of an act. The kid had a core of decency in him that even Mozzie didn’t possess.

Still, several years into their partnership, when Neal had ignored his warnings and walked right into an FBI trap, Moz had gone to ground, laying low in the one safe house he’d never told Neal about, convinced the young man would give him up to make a deal for himself. Mozzie wouldn’t have blamed him; that’s how the game was played, after all, the risks of the life. He thought if their positions had been reversed, he might’ve given up Neal, though he would’ve felt bad about it.

But Moz had never had to put his own character to the test because no one had ever come looking for him. Days after Neal had been arrested, when he’d cautiously poked his head out of his bolt-hole and started discreetly reconnecting with their old contacts, Mozzie had heard the same report again and again, from every corner of the street: Neal had been offered a deal to identify and testify against his partners and to give up his cache of stolen goods, but he had steadfastly maintained his innocence, insisted there were no partners and no loot because there had been no crime. With the litany of charges levied against him, Neal could have been locked away until he was an old man, but he had rolled the dice and kept his mouth shut.

Then, after his conviction, the offers had started again—a lower security facility or even a reduced sentence—in exchange for the identity of the small man who’d been spotted with him on video surveillance several times. But by that point, Mozzie was no longer worried anyone would ever come looking.

Now, as much as he understood the benefit it had provided him, Mozzie was beginning to wonder if maybe Neal’s loyalty was becoming a liability. He’d always known it was expansive—it protected him, Kate, Alex, even the random people they sometimes worked with for one-off jobs; Neal was always the front man, always the one who took the biggest risks so that everyone else could stay in the shadows. But it had never occurred to Mozzie that loyalty might someday expand to include the suit, not even during the chase, when Neal’s unnatural fascination with Peter Burke had been apparent.

Moz still wanted to rage. This was all kinds of wrong, that Neal Caffrey could be held hostage by affection for the federal agent responsible for locking him up not just once but _three_ separate times. The kid couldn’t even see he was getting in over his head, and as a self-appointed mentor, Mozzie probably had a responsibility to put a stop to it.

And he _could_ stop it; he was sure of that. The uncertainty in the tortured blue eyes that stared across the table made clear that right now, Neal still considered loyalty to the suit a betrayal to his mentor, and Moz was sure those scales still tipped in his favor. If he insisted it was time to run, Neal would go along, however regretfully.

But Mozzie was under no illusion that would always be the case. The one thing he’d never been able to teach Neal was to harden his heart, keep people at a distance. And he knew when it came to Neal’s handler, the young man didn’t see a fed who’d locked him up; Neal saw a fed who’d gotten him out, and that was a dangerous distinction. Eventually, Peter Burke would be entirely within Neal’s protective bubble, and that would definitely spell trouble. Mozzie should stop this now.

But even if he could ignore Neal’s obvious desire not to hurt Peter, Moz was struck by the sudden memory of the agent sitting on a park bench worried about his consultant—his _friend_ —and how to help him through the grief of losing Kate. And, of course, Neal was right about one thing: Peter Burke was the only suit who’d ever been interested in keeping Neal _out_ of prison. Mozzie could admit to himself (if no one else) that he’d felt a certain amount of relief upon realizing he suddenly had an ally—no matter how unexpected—in his efforts to protect Neal. Sometimes that could be a full-time job, and neither Kate nor Alex had ever been very good backup.

Mozzie sighed just a little. He was probably going to regret this.

Sliding into his chair, Mozzie gazed across the table with a softer expression. “If you go now,” he said, picking up the conversation seamlessly, “the suit probably wouldn’t manage to keep his badge a second time.”

“Right.” The word came out in a whoosh of breath, like Neal was relieved he didn’t have to be the one to say it.

“Then we wait,” Moz said simply.

Neal’s eyebrows shot up as he studied Mozzie for a second before a small, relieved smile twitched at the corner of his lips. “Really?”

“It’s not as if the cloth is going to suddenly stop blocking signals. And like you said, the suit did just help Gina; that’s worth cutting him a little slack.” Mozzie started repacking his items into the waiting messenger bag. “Plus, it’ll give me time to fine-tune the plan, make sure of the details. Come up with a contingency plan or two.”

Neal finally relaxed, loosening his grip on the wine glass as he leaned casually back into the chair. He gave his old friend a genuine smile, and Mozzie was glad to see the sparkle returning to his eyes.

“The plan sounded pretty good already,” Neal said.

“Plans can almost always be improved. Remember that ‘excellence represents the wise choice of many alternatives.’”

“That’s very Aristotelian of you.”

Mozzie pushed himself to his feet, slipping the bag strap around his neck as he moved. “I should go. You nine to five types need your rest.”

Neal followed him to the door, opening it for him, but also brushing his hand lightly against Mozzie’s shoulder. “It really is a good plan,” he said softly. “Thank you.”

Moz returned a smile. “Whenever you’re ready, Neal.”

It _was_ a good plan, Mozzie reflected as he made his way downstairs, though he was less confident now that it would ever be tested. Things were going to get tricky from here on out. Well, tricki _er._

Mozzie startled as he opened the front door of the mansion and saw Peter Burke with a hand raised, just about to knock. “Suit! What’re you doing here?”

Peter looked at him suspiciously. “Has June made you part of the staff?”

“As if I would ever take a _job,_ ” Mozzie sniffed.

“Just as well, since you’re not very welcoming.” Peter looked pointedly between himself, still standing outside on the stoop, and the smaller man standing in the doorway. “Are you going to let me in?”

“It’s almost ten o’clock. Even CIs should be entitled to a good night’s sleep.”

“Something came up on a case—not that it’s really any of your business.”

Mozzie still didn’t move, and after another thirty seconds, Peter barked at him. “ _Mozzie!_ ”

Finally, Moz stepped back, holding the door open widely for Peter to step through, but when the little man closed the door again without completing his own exit, Peter seemed to get the idea that he had something on his mind.

“Is everything okay, Mozzie? Is Neal all right?”

Mozzie was glad to hear more concern than suspicion in the question. And he wasn’t as surprised as he would’ve liked to be. “He’s fine. Was actually in a pretty good mood earlier.”

“Earlier. Not now?”

With a shrug, Moz told him, “You know how he’s been lately, kind of prone to mood swings.” He obviously couldn’t discuss the reasons for the most recent change of mood, and he wished the suit hadn’t shown up while Neal was even a little bit vulnerable to his odd brand of kindliness, but . . .

“He’ll probably be glad to see you, though,” he said grudgingly. Then he added a touch of menace to his tone. “As long as this really is just about a case.”

Peter offered him a smile, somewhere between sympathy and amusement, as if he understood Mozzie’s reluctance. “Just a case. He’s not in any sort of trouble.”

Mozzie nodded once. “In that case, I’ll leave him in your mostly capable hands.”

He shook his head ruefully as he watched Peter start up the stairs, then slipped out the door.

“The best laid schemes,” Mozzie muttered to himself as he made his way into the dark Manhattan streets. More and more of his schemes seemed to go awry the longer Neal was around his suit.

It was a good thing Mozzie believed in contingency plans.

**~END~**

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a little something that popped into my head following a discussion with [thelastphoenixever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelastphoenixever) about blocking cell phone signals. And, in case you’re not familiar with them, Faraday bags are real. You can read about them here: [Faraday bags](https://privacypros.io/faraday-bags/)
> 
> Way back in 1785, Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote _**To a Mouse,**_ which included the phrase, “ _The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley,_ ” which we know far more commonly as, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!


End file.
